Fiction Meets Reality
by millennium-night
Summary: Have you ever discovered that a total stranger owns a doll version of yourself? Then you can certainly imagine how Jonathan Crane feels in this very situation! Roughly a sequel to "The Calamitous Involvement of a Chocolate Cake", but no prior knowledge is required.


The house across the street was empty. The dim shimmer of a far off street lantern threw large shadows on the ground, but it was not enough to light the gray colours of the early night. If he had not seen the house front in daylight before, he would not have suggested that it was painted in a bright orange, Crane noticed incidentally.

Most buildings here had such colourful walls in general, which again showed how different this place was from Gotham. 'Santon Lake' was its name and it was an idyllic little village surrounded by woods, which about 3000 residents called 'home'.

Each house had its own yard and never more than two floors, and all windows were neatly decorated with boxes of flowers of all shapes and sizes. It seemed like a wonderful, calm place to live, at least if one was not bothered by the fact that it was miles from anywhere.

However, none of this was of great interest to the Scarecrow. He had never cared much about aesthetic values, and so he paid no attention to the bed of petunias he had tramped down while hiding in a front garden opposite his destination. All he needed to know was that the family living across the street - a teenage girl, her little brother, their parents and their cat - had gone on vacation this morning, which he owed to days of inconspicuous observation.

The villain checked his environment one last time – all windows but a few farther off his position were dark - before he finally crossed the road and climbed over the head-high fence with ease.

When one of the neighbour's windows suddenly lit up, Crane pressed his body against the wet grass. He could not help but chuckle as he felt the rush of adrenaline overwhelming his body – although he would never admit it, he loved this primitive feeling! Remaining there motionlessly until it became dark again, he waited for his increased heartbeat to settle down and continued his task by crawling to the back side of the house, where luckily, the boy had left his window open.

The now damp burlap felt uncomfortable and cold on the doctor's skin, for it was not particularly warm outside, and each soft breeze made him shiver. He clenched his teeth, determined to ignore this weakness, and recalled why he had bothered to take the risk of coming here in the first place:

A month ago he had broken into the villa of an old lady in order to steal some things of great value. The reason had been simple and somewhat embarrassing to him - he had been in urgent need of money. The Bat, however, had stopped him and in a hurry he had hidden the vial of his newest fear toxin inside a teddy bear. It had been his only one, but at least he had been able to prevent the Arkham doctors and policemen from taking it, which meant he was not forced to create a new formula again.

Long story made short, he had escaped from the Asylum within a few days, had found out that the lady had sent the bear to her grandchildren in _Santon Lake _and, during the past few days, he had been lurking in the shadows, waiting for the perfect opportunity to get it back.

Now said moment had come, and Jonathan pulled himself up the downpipe to the open window on the second storey. On the window sill he stopped in a crouch, holding fast onto the frame with one hand, and evaluated his position first. A sudden wind gust blew his sorcerer-like hat off his head. _No! _In a fluent movement, he spun around and reached for his headgear with his free hand. Losing his balance, he managed to grab it just in time, but slipped off the small platform, so that his whole weight was merely hold by his grasp at the window frame. Crane involuntarily hissed with pain due to the sudden strain on his arm and slowly heaved himself into the house.

The boy's room seemed little promising. He could not see the teddy anywhere, let alone any other stuffed toy. He did not know much about children, but he considered the place to be surprisingly tidy, compared to his own in his childhood. Even the plastic cars he found in one of the cupboards were neatly placed in a row, ordered by colours. "Okay...?" He stood back, confused.

Then he shrugged and decided not to think further about it.

The Scarecrow made his way to the room next door, the girl's room, as he recalled from his mental map of the house. The door was one of glass, yet it offered no view at what was behind it as it had been covered with old newspapers from the inside. He laid a gloved hand on the doorhandle and pushed it open.

It was an ordinary girl's room, mostly kept in matching tones of red and orange, and on the bed, next to the pillow, it was - the teddy! Jonathan leapt into the room and grabbed the bear, relieved to find the vial of toxin still in it. Out of the corner of his eyes he noticed another doll which had been placed next to his wanted object. He picked it up with spiderly fingers, not quite realizing why. It had a big head with big, shiny eyes, and it wore a pointed hat and a red shirt. If he had not been who he was, Crane would have called it cute. "Funny...," he mumbled to himself, and felt a mild, cold tingling running down his spine like an indication of shock, which still lacked connection.

Then he found one.

"_OH. MY. GOD!"_

Totally caught off-guard by the heaviness of realization, he dropped the doll as if it was a bunch of snakes. The horrible thing looked like a scarecrow, and not just any scarecrow: In fact, it wore exactly the same costume he used to wear years ago. Almost sensing that the moment of shock was not over yet, the villain teared his eyes away from the doll's yellow ones, which were staring up at him, and he slowly turned his head to his right. The posters he had paid no attention to before showed _himself_ in different poses and outfits – some were real photographies (at least he thought they were, but he could not remember ever having posed for them), some cartoonish drawings and some showed him in a costume he had never had. There was just one picture of a man with dark hair and steel-blue eyes looking through a pair of unobtrusive glasses he could not really associate, but the caption saying 'Batman Begins' told him he better should.

He stood there for a while, awkwardly situated and having the feeling of having woken up in some kind of strange parallel universe.

After a while his excitement had settled, and , now with growing curiosity, he was able to digest the situation rationally again. There was quite a lot to see in this room, after all, and some of the ideas manifested in the posters and little figurines he discovered on the desk were not that bad.

At the wall there was also a big mirror - and first he felt a bit silly, but then he could not resist and imitated one of his images, imagining having needles attached to his fingers. His reflection glared back at him, as frightening and dark as it should be, and he nodded contentedly. But how was he supposed to use this spiky weapon without accidentally injuring himself? He would have to think about it, surely he could modify the idea.

The Scarecrow's gaze fell upon a pile of thin books, which had apparently been placed in the bookshelf in a hurry as they lacked any visible order. He picked one from the bottom and drew it out – the bright, green lettering of the title formed a strong contrast to the gloomy colours of the cover.

"Scarecrow Year One...?" Jonathan frowned and opened the first page. By now it was obvious he had a comic book in his hands, and although he generally preferred weighty, ancient tomes of non-fiction and used to scorn the colourful picture novels beneath notice, this one did arouse his interest.

For lack of a proper chair, he simply sat down on the ground, cross-legged next to the shelf, and began to read...

Not before a sudden noise from the floor startled him, he stopped reading and jumped to his feet. Merely a split of a second later the door was pushed open and revealed a girl at the age of sixteen. With wide eyes she stared at the burlap-clad intruder, who could not help but stare back at her in a bewildered way, and she pushed back a foxy strand of hair as a first confused reaction.

Then she realized something, he could see it at the spark in her emerald green eyes. Yet it was not exactly what he had imagined.

"WEEEEEEH!" she squeaked with growing excitement and glomped him, which resulted in both of them falling to the ground. By this time the Scarecrow had not quite decided yet whether to be horrified or furious, and this reflected in his strangely screwed-up face. Eventually his instinct acted faster than his brain and quickly shoved the girl off.

"What the hell are you doing!" he shouted, finally finding his tongue. His opposite, however, showed no useful reaction and just kept grinning blissfully, and the villain was not sure if she had even noticed his refusal.

He stood up to his full size, which was at least head and shoulders above her, and gave her the most sinister scowl he knew in order to intimidate her until he could think of a better way out of the situation.

"Oh my God, this is so awesome! Can I take a photo of you for my Wall of Fear?" Before he could reply, she had already drawn a camera phone out of the pocket of her jeans and pressed a button, followed by a bright flash light that dazzled Jonathan for a moment. Sceptically eyeing the display, she continued, "You know, that's a great costume you have there. For a moment I actually believed that you were the real Scarecrow."

"What- but I _am_ the real Scarecrow! I am the Master of Fear, the Lord of Despair, I-" He stopped himself before he wandered off the point again. "What are you talking about?"

"No, you can't be the Scarecrow since he's a comic character. He's fictional," the girl answered in a matter-of-fact way, yet her voice sounded as if she had to convince herself. "Anyway, what are you doing in my room?"

"But- I- I am the Scarecrow from Gotham City, my name's listed in their rogues gallery" he stammered, then, realizing how stupid he sounded, he continued with increasing anger, "and what I am doing here is none of your damn business!"

"Oh really? Prove it!" She crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame, a challenging look in her deeply green eyes.

Crane felt himself slowly losing his temper. His eyelid twitched, which had always been a reliable signal for him to end a situation soon. "I won't prove anything," he growled indignantly. He had gotten what he needed and could as well leave.

But as soon as he made a move towards the window, the girl called him back with an almost desperate voice, proving her previously displayed self-confidence wrong. "Wait, I believe you, just don't go away!" For a reason not even he could explain the Scarecrow turned around to face the girl one last time. "Let's just talk for a start," she offered, visibly relieved, and smiled full of hope.

Crane took a deep breath and sighed heavily. "Just tell me what you meant by 'He's fictional'."

"Okay - all I know is that there is a series of Batman comics and the Scarecrow is one of his enemies. There are people who draw him and all the other villains, invent their stories and produce games, action figures and other stuff."

"So no one hereabouts believes that these characters are real."

"Correct. If they actually are, it is possible that it's only known to people in the region of Gotham. Perhaps the government tries to prevent something like this from spreading, or people simply forgot about the real origins with time. But, to be honest, it surprises me that you have never heard of this before - surely you can buy some comics where you live."

"Okay, that's all." He nodded gravely. Perhaps he had indeed paid too less attention to the media during the past few years. His gaze fell upon the comic he had dropped and he picked it up.

Suddenly another female voice cried and the sound was carried through the whole building.

"Sweety, why are you taking so long? Hurry and get your jacket, we want to leave!"

"Yeah, hurry! We're already so late just because of you, I wanna be at the beach before dawn!" a second voice shouted, this time a boyish one.

"Coming!" the girl shouted and hectically grabbed a jacket which was lying crumpled in the corner of her bed. She turned to Jonathan again, still so many questions on her face. The latter had used her distraction to climb back on top of the window sill, the vial of fear toxin in his pocket and the comic carried under his arm. He sensed her uneasiness and glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, returning her distressed look with unbearable expressionlessness for a seemingly endless moment.

"What's your name?" he asked finally.

"Amber," she replied quickly.

With this he swung himself outside and climbed down with monkey-like elegance, before he disappeared into the night.

In her room the girl named Amber smiled happily, for she knew this had not been her last encounter with her favourite villain. The impatient hoot of her parents' car told her to hurry and go outside.

It was going to be a great holiday trip, but this time she was much more looking forward to coming home again.

* * *

_A/N: I don't own the Scarecrow and anything Batman-related. This was written purely for fun._

_By the way, the doll is supposed to resemble the one I made some time ago. You can find some photos in my DA gallery, if you are interested.  
_


End file.
